“Settlement” eventually came in the form of a $500 million compensation by Formosa Steel to victims. However, this pay-off is still too far low an amount of compensation relative to the amount of damage caused. There are also remain questions about how distribution of the compensation was handled, with victims generally receiving less than $1000 USD apiece, and doubts about whether the full amount was actually distributed. Namely, the Vietnamese state has acted to defend Formosa Steel from the beginning, by first attempting to deflect blame from the company and point to other cause, and only reluctantly acknowledging wrongdoing by Formosa Steel after large protests rocked the nation.

Formosa Steel is owned by Formosa Plastics, Taiwan’s largest producer of plastics materials. Given Formosa Plastic’s long history of environmental wrongdoing in Taiwan, Cambodia, America, and elsewhere, such actions by Formosa Steel are not surprising. Nevertheless, apart from insufficient attention in Taiwan to an ecological and humanitarian disaster caused by a Taiwanese company, some in Taiwan refused to accept wrongdoing on the part of Formosa Steel in spite of its past record of environmental harm across the world.

Formosa Steel plant in Vietnam. Photo credit: AFP

Some Taiwanese journalists even went so far as to claim that the $500 million compensation which Formosa Steel was ordered to pay was the Vietnamese government attempting to pin blame on Formosa Steel and then extorting a ransom from Formosa Steel through refusing to allow Formosa Steel president Chen Yuan-cheng to leave the country until the fine was paid. However, with recent events, we see again now how the Vietnamese government has consistently acted to defend Formosa Steel throughout.

But the recent actions of the Vietnamese government demonstrate that the Formosa Steel issue is far from settled. Raising awareness in Taiwan can still do some good in order to make sure that justice is found for those who experienced ecological disaster due to Formosa Steel’s actions.

Brian Hioe was one of the founding editors of New Bloom. He is a freelance writer on social movements and politics, and occasional translator. A New York native and Taiwanese-American, he has an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University and graduated from New York University with majors in History, East Asian Studies, and English Literature. He was Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy from 2017 to 2018.
丘琦欣，創建破土的編輯之一，專於撰寫社會運動和政治的自由作家偶而亦從事翻譯工作。他是出生於紐約的台裔美人。他自哥倫比亞大學畢業，是亞洲語言及文化科系的碩士，同時擁有紐約大學的歷史，東亞研究及英文文學三項學士學位。

About New Bloom

New Bloom is an online magazine covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific, founded in Taiwan in 2014 in wake of the Sunflower Movement. We seek to put local voices in touch with international discourse, beginning with Taiwan.